A look back to the past

Confessions of the Pricing Man – How price affects everything

Newly released book by global pricing guru Professor Hermann Simon

Heidelberg, 11 November 2015

In his latest book Confessions of the Pricing Man, management thinker and pricing specialist Hermann Simon explains how innovative pricing strategies, tactics and tricks work. Telling his story from the perspective of a student turned professor turned global pricing guru, he explains that prices are ultimately the most effective way to generate higher profits using anecdotes and engaging real-life case studies. Simon is the founder and chairman of Simon-Kucher & Partners, the global leader in price consulting represented in 22 countries.

“As a young boy I got angry when my father, a small farmer, had to accept very low prices when delivering his hogs to the market. Price has become my lifelong companion, my passion,” Simon remarks. “The more I explored prices, the more questions and conundrums emerged.” He debunks popular myths, decodes mysterious price phenomena and digs deep into the strange psychology of pricing. He illustrates his explications with innumerable cases of best and worst practices from over 40 years of experience as a pricing specialist for companies around the world. Apple, Honda, Ryanair and the mysterious “Hidden Champions” offer good examples of how pricing influences a company’s whole business.

Simon challenges CEOs by asking “What is the role of the CEO in pricing?”, finance departments and sales forces. He argues that pricing processes must permeate organizations along the whole length of the value chain. He explains how internet and e-commerce are changing the world of pricing and comments on many popular beliefs. “The biggest impact is not price transparency, but value transparency. And value-to-customer is the most important aspect of prices,” he states. As Philip Kotler, Ph.D., concludes: “This is the best book I know to open your mind to the practical problems in setting your prices.”

Educated as an economist, Simon was a professor of management and marketing at the Universities of Mainz and Bielefeld for 16 years. As visiting professor, he held positions at Harvard Business School, MIT, Stanford, Keio University Tokyo, and London Business School. His books have been published in more than 25 languages and he is an acclaimed speaker at conferences worldwide.